December 30, 2010

So this is pretty stupid but here goes: every day I went to work last year, I took a photo right when I made the big turn east into downtown Chicago on the Kennedy express lane, and made a movie out of it.If it gets tedious, skip to the end.I'm practicing being a bad editor with my Final Cut Express 4. First I cut it with some song I had in my iTunes, but I found out that's illegal to put on You Tube.So I scoured the web for someplace that had free royalty-free music, and finally found PublicDomain2Ten. And when I went there right on the front page they had "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" - I have to think the original version of it.

The singer is a guy named Ed Meeker, and he recorded at Edison Recordings (was Thomas a sound engineer too?).

Oh yeah, what reeeeaaaaally caught my eye?It was recorded in 1908, the year that uh, it was the last time that the Cu... OH NEVERMIND.

You know what that means.

Anyway, if the freaking San Francisco Giants can win the World Series, well...who knows, right?

Not alot going on Cubs-wise, so thought I'd tell a story I was reminded of because my daughter found these old photos you'll see in a second.

Sometime in 2000, my wife entered me in a Com Ed contest by filling out something on our electric bill.She never told me, though. One day out of the blue I just got this weird call from Com Ed saying I'd won 4 tickets to a Cubs/Sox game and a tour.This is the kind of good fortune that's happened to me exactly once in my entire life.

It all happened very quickly, and I only invited my brother Grog (real name Greg, long story for the nickname) and buddy Flynn, and ate the other ticket.

We had to be there 3 hours early. Have you ever been to Wrigley 3 hours early?There's parking EVERYWHERE!In fact, there was a parking place right in front of Bernie's on Clark just south of Waveland!I knew it was gonna be a magic day.

We went to the Wrigley offices behind the ticket counters, met a woman who was a kind of guide for Wrigley - and she had a camera to record the event, as did I.

We were told we'd get to meet "some of the Cubs", take a tour of Wrigley, and then watch the game.

So, she dragged us out to the field - we got to sit in the Cubs' dugout, walk around on the field, and then out came these Cubs: a guy who I think was the hitting coach, Sandy Alomar, Brant Brown, and Jeff Huson.It was already head-spinningly weird just being on the field with Cubs, but then my brother goes, "Huson! How's it going?"And Huson goes, "Grog? What are you doing here?" and they began to chit chat.You know - what the hell, man?Oh, turns out they went to highschool together at Mingus Union near Sedona, AZ. Okay so that was weird.Flynn and I tried to talk to Alomar, but he spoke really fast and we couldn't understand a thing he said. Brant Brown was a super-nice guy, and 2000 was a couple years after the dropping the fly ball thing. He would play his last game in the Bigs in August.Then those guys went back to work and our guide took us over to the door that now says "Underarmour" on it in right field. She opened it and it was all brightly lit in there...with batting cages.We walked in and there was Billy Williams throwing pitches to some kid."That's Billy's grandson," said the guide.They never acknowledged us, just kept throwing and swinging, and I felt kinda like a peeping Tom looking thru a history window.That was unbelievably cool. Then we went back in Wrigley, they treated us to lunch and escorted us to our seats right behind the Cub dugout while the pitchers were taking batting practice.Kerry Wood just got finished and was standing about 10 feet away.Kerry Wood.If you'll recall, he had a kind of mean reputation back then.But I think it was Flynn who broke the ice, asked him to sign a ball (we brought a couple), and he signed one for my son too.Immediately, the other people in the stands all climbed down and I felt idiotic and responsible for each ball he had to sign.Then the game started and the Cubs beat up the Sox 9-6 - this is the box from Baseball Almanac - and you can see Huson got a pinch hit and scored, we saw Cub homers by Sosa and Henry Rodriguez, and Sox homers by Frank Thomas, Maggs Ordonez, and 2 by a young Carlos Lee, all off of Kevin Tapani. And of course the inning from Sox reliever Bob Howry.

So, THE MOST AWESOME DAY EVER!Til we got right in front of Bernie's where my car used to be, right on Clark just South of Waveland.

We all noticed the giant sign that said "NO PARKING TOW ZONE" at about the same time.

December 29, 2010

This was supposed to be a happy post about Patrick Kane and the Chicago Blackhawks getting the band back together with Kane and Marian Hossa all back from injury and vaguely healthy and continuing their 4-game winning streak in St. Louis.Instead, I watch Jonathan Toews go twisting into the boards like the inside of a car wreck where nobody's wearing a seat belt and then he's barely able to get off the ice while I'm trying to swallow the bubbling hurl in the back of my throat.

The Hawks are the polar opposite of the Bears, who (knock on wood) have impossibly made it thru the whole season without any kind of long-term injury to the important parts - SUPER lucky because the Bears don't have replacements for those guys.Especially at QB.

I spent last night switching between the Hawks' 1-3 loss to the Blues and the Minnesota Vikings' amazing 24-14 win over the Philadelphia Eagles. Some guy who was drafted as a receiver named Joe Webb kind of out-Vicked Michael Vick at QB while Brett Favre cheered from the sidelines. Can't really tell if the Vikings' Eagle-stomp takes the luster off the Bears' Eagle-stomp because it looked like the Eagles didn't lose it - it looked like the Vikings won it.

And with that loss, the Bears get a playoff bye and the number 2 seed - WEIRD.

Plus, if they beat the Packers next week, the Packers go home for the winter - WEIRD.

PLUS, Urlacher, Briggs, Hester, and Peppers make the Pro Bowl while (in my opinion) the Bears' MVP would be Cutler - WEIRD.

It's just the weirdest football season.

Anyway, back to Toews.I'm expecting the worst, but probably they'll just say the usual "upper body" thing and we'll never know how much is pulled and bent up there.

December 28, 2010

This is from last year - just seems appropriate with New Years almost upon us...

You kids won't remember this, but "Italian restaurant" once meant a place that served basically spaghetti or lasagne - everything with red sauce and garlic bread. Then came this new thing, at the time called "Northern Italian". A whole new world with this crazy "pasta" stuff that came in different shapes and sizes: capellini and fettucine, "al dente" or spinach or squid ink with garlicky white wine sauces and cream sauces and bay scallops and calamari. Crazy.

In the early '80s I waited tables at one of Chicago's Northern Italian semi-biggies called "George's", from restauranteur George Bodonski (I think that's how you spell it).

It was on Kinzie near the Merchandise Mart - at the time just a "dangerous" enough location for people from the burbs to go and feel like they had a real city experience. My brother was a car hiker there, and more than once he'd run to the next block where he'd parked somebody's Caddy, then have to come back and discreetly give the keys back to the host.

It was the host's job to explain that sometimes cars get stolen.

I remember Gordo (not his real name) the "host" claimed to be the illegitimate son of Mel Torme, the manager was a fabulous woman who, if a table misbehaved, would give 'em the bum's rush out the door (my first experience with hey - the customer might not always be right), and they had live music.

For this one New Years, they had Ramsey Lewis (the Ramsey Lewis Trio, I think), and it was a giant deal.

I had a station up front by the stage, where all the tables sat two (a 2-top), but you could also put them next to each other and make a giant table. It was one of the premier stations, and I was gonna make a billion dollars off a 10-top that had pre-ordered 8 bottles of Dom (or something really expensive) for the Big Moment at midnight.

The night's going smoothly and Ramsey's playing and it's getting close to the New Year. I've got the first bottle of champagne on ice by the table's host who's a bearded guy in his 40's wearing Armani or something, and most importantly is the guy who's gonna pick up the check and leave me a fat fifteen percent.

This guy is licking his chops. It's his New Years party. It's his glory, his moment, and (all phallic stuff about opening a bottle of champagne aside) it's about to climax in about 8 minutes.

Suddenly there's a commotion by the front door - people with giant video cameras and microphones and lights.

It's Channel 2 (or something) News!

They huddle with Gordo the host, and Gordo waves me over. Can they shoot me opening a celebratory bottle of champagne live at midnight?

I know what they want and it means a great celebration shot for tv, but it also means spilling a bunch of really expensive champagne. You're really not supposed to "pop" a cork, but rather you put a napkin over the top of the bottle and nudge the cork out a little at a time. No spraying, no loud "pop", nobody gets hurt with a missile-cork.

So I go ask the bearded guy if he minds if I do the whole pop and spray opening for him with Ramsey Lewis on piano in the background on the Channel 2 News?

He's thrilled. Beaming. A celebrity!

Now, there's about 2 minutes left to go and it's literally insane around my table - people shouting, a lighting guy has a spotlight on me and he's lit up the ceiling so the background is as bright as a Walmart, the newswoman with the microphone is fixing her hair and then suddenly she says something like, "We're live at George's Restaurant for the countdown..." and I'm fumbling with the foil and I get the wire carriage off and the woman is saying "8...7...6..." and I get my thumbs under the cork and I'm aiming it at the ceiling so nobody gets a black eye and "THREE...TWO...ONE!"

I push the cork.

Nothing.

I push it some more, and it falls limply onto the table.

The bearded guy (the host and tip-giver), he grimaces and says, "IT'S FLAT!"

And I don't remember much after that.

Why?

BECAUSE I WAS A FREAKING IDIOT ON LIVE TV AND PROBABLY LOST MY BILLION DOLLAR TIP!

I remember scrambling for another bottle.

I remember the newspeople turning off the lights and saying "Shit" before they left.

I remember recovering my composure with the 10-top, and they all had a great time.

But at the end of the night? Ten percent.

I guess it's hard to forgive when you're on tv with an idiot waiter who brought you flat champagne.

December 27, 2010

I promised myself I wouldn't even touch Rex Ryan's foot fetish thing because I'm so above that kinda stuff.

So may I start this post with an apology to myself for being such a big fat liar?

Speaking of big and fat-headed (pretend you heard a Bevis and Butthead laugh here), you either saw Ryan's fake punt call live or by now read about it and it's backfiring effect.

Yesterday's Bears/Jets game was, since the Bears won, a SUPER fun game to watch filled with bombs and offense and incredible luck and 38 points for the home team. Cutler was amazing, Forte was my own favorite aspect of the game (113 yards, 19 carries, plus some GIANT catches), and Fear Of Devin Hester caused the Jets to do these dinky kick-offs to keep the ball well in front of our Scariest Bear.

Hester is literally Ryan's worst nightmare.

We went from a super-high first quarter to disaster and despair in the 2nd back to super-high in the 3rd to hang on for dear life in the 4th.Bears 38 Jets 34.

We had guests staying over, and once in awhile my wife will say something crazy like, "Why don't you men go to a bar to watch the Bears game."And outside I'll casually say, "Okay" while inside I say: "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"The bartender was talented enough to pour Guinness and, with the last of the pour, make a 3-leaf clover design in the thick, foamy head.At the beginning of the 2nd quarter, we asked for a 4 leaf clover.For luck.Then Cutler threw the interception and New York scored 24 points.Should any of you find yourself in a similar situation with the Guinness, I suggest you stick with the 3-leaf clover design.

In other news, former Bear Mike Singletary gets booted from the head coaching job with the 49ers, and former Bear Jim Harbaugh is rumored to take his place.But wouldn't it be awesome if Harbaugh stayed in college ball, where he fits, and let that freaking Jon Gruden go coach San Francisco instead? So that Gruden's just plain wrong voice won't infect ESPN's football broadcasts?

And back to the Bears.

Regular season ends in Green Bay with, I think, home field advantage on the line for the Bears. And you have to imagine the Packers are one seriously pissed off team who think they should be in the driver's seat where the Bears currently sit. Remember that first game, where the Pack gave the Bears about a mile in penalties?I don't expect that to happen again.SO looking forward to this one.

Cubby-Blue

is a sports and art blog following the Chicago Cubs with cartoons, gifs, animations, and illustrations by Chicago artist Tim Souers.
I began the illustrations in 2003 - you can find the links to the 2003 - 2006 seasons below.
2007 - present is in the regular archives.
Feel free to contact me at CubbyDashBlue(at)gmail(dot)com.
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